


Unexpected Gifts

by Emeraldsoleil



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Post-Episode: s07e02 The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, Scully Family Christmas, Season/Series 07 Spoilers, mentions of catholicism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28178190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeraldsoleil/pseuds/Emeraldsoleil
Summary: When bad weather closes the roads on Christmas Eve, Scully drags Mulder along to her mother's house for a Scully Family Christmas that draws them ever closer to one another.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 12
Kudos: 89
Collections: X-Files Secret Santa Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	Unexpected Gifts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MonikaFileFan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonikaFileFan/gifts).



> Prompt: Mulder and Scully finish up a case later than planned on Christmas Eve due to a snow storm. Mulder offers to take Scully to her mother's but a State of Emergency is issued, leaving him stranded with the Scully fam for Christmas. How awkward does it turn out? Do they swap gifts or express their feelings? 
> 
> S6 or S7 please. I love the burgeoning MSR through the tension.
> 
> \--
> 
> This story takes place the Christmas before Millennium. It's the first XF fic I've written in about 15 years, so I might be a little rusty, but I absolutely loved this prompt and writing this story. 
> 
> Monika, I hope I did your prompt justice! Merry Christmas!

"Dana? Is that you?" Maggie Scully's soft voice meets them at the front door as it swings open under the soft porch light. The bells on the pine bough wreath jangle softly in the snowy, quiet almost-night. "We expected you hours ago."

"Yeah, Mom, hi. Merry Christmas. The weather got worse on our way back from Baltimore, and it was a long drive." Scully explains, stomping the snow off of her shoes and shaking the flakes from her hair. "The Department of Highways closed the freeways because of blizzard conditions, and Mulder couldn't get home. I told him you wouldn't mind." 

"Yeah, sorry, for crashing the party, Mrs. Scully. Mulder walks up behind her, both of their overnight bags gripped in one hand. 

"Of course not, don't be silly," Maggie says. "Merry Christmas, Fox." She favors him with a motherly smile before pressing a kiss to her daughter's cheek and ushering them inside. 

They've arrived just as the family is putting the final preparations on Christmas Eve dinner, and Scully hands out quick hugs to her brothers and their wives, and captures her nephews in crushing, giggling hugs by turns. 

"Charlie, this is my partner, Mulder," she says. 

If Charlie thinks it's weird that his sister has dragged her work partner to a family Christmas, or that his older brother looks like he's swallowed something distasteful, he doesn't say. Instead, he offers his hand to Mulder, who shakes it in return. "Nice to meet you, man. I've heard nothing but good things." There's an impish glint in his eyes, and Mulder gets the impression that the younger Scully brother is nothing like the dour and domineering Bill. He likes Charlie almost immediately.

"Likewise. Sorry to drop in unannounced."

"Why ARE you here, Mr. Mulder?" Bills voice is just this side of pleasant, and Mulder watches Scully grow an inch as her spine fills with steel.

"Don't start, Bill," Scully warns. "They closed the roads when we were on our way back from Baltimore. He couldn't get home. So, he's spending Christmas with us." She levels a glare at her brother that had sent lesser men in the Bureau running and dared him to make an issue of it. 

"I'll be out of your hair once they plow the roads." Mulder assures Bill, holding his hand out in peace offering. He and Scully's brother were never going to be friends, but he was willing to play nice so Scully could enjoy Christmas with her family. 

Bill only hesitates a moment before accepting Mulder's outstretched hand with a nod and a terse, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Mulder." 

\---

Mrs. Scully ushers her daughter into the kitchen almost immediately, thankful to have another pair of hands. Mulder, adrift and slightly uncomfortable in the midst of all the Scully family togetherness, drifts after her. 

"Need any help?" Mulder leans casually in the doorway, and arms crossed loosely at his chest. Scully is holding court at the wide kitchen island, tipping rolls from baking sheets into linen lined baskets.

Her eyebrow stands to attention of its own accord. "Do you have some previously unmentioned and unseen talent in a kitchen you've been hiding from me all these years? Rotating boxes of leftover Chinese in your fridge doesn't count."

"I'm a dab hand at spiking the eggnog."

"We're Irish Catholic, Mulder. We've got that covered." Finished with the breadbaskets, she wipes the counters down with surgical efficiency. Mulder fidgets in the doorway like a little boy with a secret. She gives a few minutes before realizing she's going to have to drag it out of him. "What's wrong?" 

He drags his bottom hip between his teeth, worrying it like he does a sunflower seed. "I know you don't get to see your family often. I guess I'm just concerned my intrusion into your family time will cause problems. I know Bill's not my biggest fan." It's uncharacteristic of him to be overly concerned with other people's opinions of him, but he wants her to have a good Christmas for once. She deserves that. 

"Where else were you going to go?" she asks practically. "Besides, Mulder, we've been partners for seven years. We spend more time with one another than married couples. You're my family, just as much as they are. Besides, its good for Bill to get his blood pressure up every once in awhile." Her eyebrow perks up again, this time in mischievous humor.

Mulder's surprised laugh is easy and comfortable and the sound washes through her. There has never been enough laughter between them, and any mirth there was between them in the beginning has been waning for years. Their lives are so heavy now, so colored by conspiracy, death, and uncertainty that joy seems sacrilegious. But here, in her mother's kitchen, on Christmas Eve, when he almost died on an operating table such a short time ago? Its so good to hear him laugh.

"Here", she says, plucking a tumbler of amber liquid from the counter and pressing it into his hands. "Liquid courage." Her voice is serious, dead serious, but her eyes are dancing with humor.

"You think I need it?" Incredulity, and disbelief. "You think I can't handle Christmas dinner with your family?"

"Its a Scully Christmas, Mulder. Drink fast so you can have another." 

"I'm not sure how I feel about that assessment of my fortitude, Scully. I'm trying not to be offended."

"I've got your back, partner," she says mysteriously, and disappears into the cacophony of family noise coming from the dining room.

Christmas Eve dinner with the Scully family is an experience. Its loud, full of laughter and high spirits, and nothing like he expected. Certainly nothing like the uptight traditional Vineyard Christmas dinners of his youth, when his mother still bothered to pretend. 

At first, he felt shoehorned into the festivities, an interloper into the private life Scully had so often tried to keep separate from their work, but not even the occasional sour look Bill sends his direction can keep the warmth and congeniality of the rest of the extended Scully clan from pulling him into their orbit. Maggie Scully, the quintessential matriarch, deftly steers the conversation away from painful topics, and to his own surprise, Mulder finds that he's enjoying himself. 

After dinner, the family bundles up to brave the snow for Christmas Eve Mass, the Bill and Charlie armed with snow shovels to ease their way on covered sidewalks. The roads are still closed, but the local parish is just two blocks away. No one is surprised when he begs off a visit to church, but he's surprised to see Scully at the door waving them off.

"You don't have to stay behind for me," he calls from the couch. "Don't not go on my account."

Scully closes the door and drops beside him on the couch, tucking her feet under her as she curls up. "I'm not. I just...it doesn't feel like the right thing for me to do right now."

This surprises him. Scully's faith has always been one of the most steadfast things about her. "What do you mean?" 

She sighs. "I've questioned so many things about myself, about my faith, since I went to Africa. I saw so many things, experienced so many things that other people would call delusional. But I know what I saw," she says with conviction, her blue eyes full of certainty, "and I know that it was real. I still don't know what it all means, how to reconcile it all. I'm not sure that I ever will. And it feels dishonest to go through the motions, pretending otherwise."

He nods. They don't believe the same things, but he certainly understands what it means to have the foundations of your faith shaken. 

"I believe you'll find the answers you're looking for Scully. You'll find your own truth, whatever that may be. You always have." 

She turns, propping her elbow on the back of the couch and resting her head in her palm. Her fingers comb idly through her hair as she looks at him. "Your capacity for belief is awe inspiring. I don't think I've ever told you that, but its true. Alice might have believed in six impossible things before breakfast, but I'm sure you have her beat." She smiles at his lopsided, sheepish grin. "That's a compliment, Mulder, I promise."

"Can I get it in writing so I have something to pull out the next time I drag you out to the back of beyond?"

"Sorry, I already bought your Christmas present." She grins at him again, nudging his shoulder playfully, and he can't help smiling back. He's lost count of the smiles she's gifted him today.

"Damn," he says, laughing. "I could have used a get out of jail free card."

"Maybe next year," she muses. Scully curls her elbow under her head and drops her ear to her forearm, looking utterly comfortable and utterly unlike her stoic professional alter ego. Her eyes drift closed, but from a sixth sense gleaned from years sitting next to her in rental cars, he can tell she's not drifting off. The silence between them grows, but it's comfortable and soft, the quiet of two people who know each other's in and outs and don't feel the need to speak just to fill the gaps. 

"Belief is one thing," Scully continues after a long moment, opening her eyes again, and picking up the threads of their earlier conversation. "You believe in almost everything. But what do you have faith in?" 

He weighs his answer for a long moment, but when he speaks, his voice is certain and unwavering. "I have faith that my sister is out there, somewhere, and that one day I will find her. I have faith that we are on the right side, that we are fighting the right battles, even if victory seems so far out of reach most days that well never see the end. And," he says, clutching her hand in his and twining their fingers together, "I have faith in you.

"I have faith that you won't let me stray too far from the path, that you won't give up on me even when I'm wrong because you know eventually you can get me to see the truth. I know you will always tell me the truth, no matter how painful for both of us, and no matter how much I refuse to believe, because you aren't capable of anything else. Your convictions are rock solid.

"Scully, you don't know what a gift that is. To never have to question your motives? To know that your compass will unerringly lead me where I need to be, if I just listen? After a lifetime of lies and secrets and half-truths, you're a miracle I don't deserve.

"I know I've given you reason to doubt that lately. I know I'm easy blinded by my own biases. But you are a reflection of the truth, and I know that if you and I are on the same page, and if I can look you in the eyes without guilt or shame, then I haven't gone too far off the path."

Scully draws in a shaky breath, and her eyes overflow with emotion. "Mulder, I don't know what to say," she says, and her voice trembles with it. When she'd asked about his faith, she doesn't know what she expected him to say, but it wasn't this. He loves her, just as she loves him. She knows that, but this? Oh, this is a truth that's almost too much, one that threatens to subsume and sublimate her until she doesn't know where he ends and she begins. This is more than love. It's responsibility and commitment and devotion and nothing less than the partnership of their souls. It's terrifying. But then, isn't that how it's always been between them? 

He leans in her direction, throwing an arm over her shoulder and drawing her close, close enough that she drops her head to rest on his shoulder. His lips find her crown and he presses a kiss there, lingering. "You don't need to say anything." They sit quietly, both content to enjoy the silence and the glow of the Christmas tree while Mulder flips through the offering of holiday entertainment on the television.

"What's your favorite Christmas movie Scully?" Mulder asks, steering their conversation back to lighter fare. He's more than happy to continue professing all his truths to her, as many as she wants to hear, but he thinks her mother's living room is probably not the place for it. 

"Mmm. White Christmas."

"Yeah?" This surprises him. It's a sentimental movie, bordering on corny. He finds it strangely endearing that his practical partner enjoys it. 

"Yeah. It's a classic. Missy and I used to watch it every year together before we moved away. Haven't seen it in years, though. What about you? Do you have a favorite?" 

"A Christmas Carol."

"I would've guessed A Christmas Story," she says, and he can feel her smiling against his bicep, the fabric of his shirt shifting under her skin. It makes sense, though. Mulder has a deep sense empathy for injustice in the world. 

"That's a close second." He stops channel surfing on Die Hard.

"This isn't a Christmas movie, Mulder."

"Says you and almost no one else," he says, and he can almost feel her eyes rolling beside him. He relaxes into the couch, rearranging his arm across the back so she doesn't feel obligated to stay curled up in his shadow, and stretches his legs out on the ottoman in front of them.

They fall asleep before the movie is halfway through. 

\---

He wakes up to warmth, and comfort, and with the knowledge that he'd slept for a solid few dreamless hours, and isn't that just a Christmas miracle? The den is aglow with the soft incandescence of the Scully family Christmas tree, and the TV is still playing, the volume turned low. On the screen, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are singing about snow in Vermont. Someone, and he firmly suspects Mrs. Scully, has thrown a pair of thick quilts over them, tucking them in against the December cold. 

At some point during the night Scully had shifted, scooting down the couch, claiming his thigh for a pillow, the rest of her curled into a tangle of limbs at his side. Somewhere under the blanket, his hand is curled around the curve of her hip, his thumb just barely brushing the thin strip of skin where her sweater has inched up away from her slacks. 

Her breathing is even and deep, and he marvels at all the ways she trusts him sometimes. Especially here, in the midst of her family. To have her back? Sure. But this, curled up together on her mother's couch, is a whole new level of intimacy for them. 

He'd expected the day to be awkward as hell, had protested firmly when she redirected the rental car toward her mother's house when they realized he wouldn't make it home. He knows he's not the favorite of most of the Scully clan, but even here, even in the midst of the people who are supposed to know her best, the two of them have carved out a space for themselves that doesn't necessarily exclude her loved ones, but it's not an invitation to join either. 

"Us against the world," he whispers into the quiet room, struck suddenly by how true it is. Almost since the beginning, they'd forged a trust and devotion to one another that seemed to defy all possibility. 

Scully shifts in her sleep, murmuring quietly, and he stills. Gently, so as not to wake her, he runs the fingers of his free hand lightly against her hairline, pulling back the curtain of her shining auburn hair so he can see her face. He takes the time to absorb every detail, to encode every soft angle of her face into long term memory, to press the feel of her curled against him into a place where he'll never forget. They've been through so much in the past year. That they've ended up here, together and alive, is more than he could have hoped for.

He sits for a long time, content to enjoy the weight of her against his leg, the warmth of her skin under his hand, and the complete absence of any need to be anywhere but exactly right here. It's been years since he's felt peace like this, however fleeting it might be. He mutes the TV, drops his head backward on the couch cushions, and just listens to Scully breathe. 

The night is still cold and black through the windows when he hears shuffling in the kitchen and looks up to find Mrs. Scully in the doorway. Crossing the living room, she presses a mug of coffee into his hands and sets a second cup down for her daughter. 

"Morning, Fox," she says with a warm smile. "Merry Christmas." 

"Merry Christmas, Mrs. Scully." He lifts the steaming mug for a sip. "Thank you. You're up early." His watch is wrapped around his wrist attached to the hand that's wrapped around his partner's hipbone, and he's loathe to break that connection but he knows dawn is still a while away. 

"The early bird gets the coffee before the army of children descend upon the Christmas tree. You've got maybe an hour before Matthew wakes up and goes hunting for Santa," she says, glancing to the pile of presents under to the tree, and plucking one small festive gift box from the top of the pile. "But, I want to give you this first. I was going to pass it along to Dana to give to you later, but I'm glad you're here to open it on Christmas." 

"Mrs. Scully, you didn't have to do that," he protests, but she just smiles. He takes 

The box is small and light, and he fumbles only a moment opening it with one hand. Nestled inside is a tiny silver medallion, barely larger than a nickel, on a thin box chain, and as he lifts it out of it's cotton nest it shines in the glow of the Christmas tree. On the medallion's face, a medieval saint holds a small cherub of a child. 

"Saint Anthony," he reads the inscription that circles the medallion's edge. He's possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of every cryptid to have roamed the continent in the past century, but the catalog of Catholic saints eludes him. He looks to Margaret Scully with brows furrowed in question. 

"Dana doesn't tell me much about her work anymore. Part of me is thankful for that, though I wonder if I could possibly worry more than I do already. But I pray for her, for both of you, every day. We pray to Saint Anthony for miracles when all seems lost, for help when we need it most. I know you aren't Catholic, Fox, but I hope you'll accept it in the spirit it's given."

"We've both had our share of miracles." He thinks about his mad race across Antarctica, about every detail that had lined up perfectly to allow him to dig her out of the ice and bring her home. He thinks about the charcoal husks on the bridge of Ruskin Dam. He thinks about the tiny, inexplicable circuit nestled next to her spinal cord holding the devil at bay. 

"A mother's prayers may not have have much influence, but I'm always asking for just one more." Her grip tightens on his wrist before she drops her hand. "You protect my daughter, Fox, you always have."

"She does the same for me, Mrs. Scully. You know that. That's what partners do." Does Scully's mother know she went to jail for him? Lied to an FBI panel for him? Fished him out of the ocean, waterlogged and barely breathing, in the Bermuda Triangle? Risked her faith and her life in Africa for answers that would preserve his own? He doubts it. 

"Yes, she does, but sometimes she needs a little help. You both do. I pray to Saint Anthony, for both of you, so you'll always come back to one another." She presses a motherly kiss to his hair where the barely visible white line of his craniotomy scar bisects his skull, pats his quilt-clad knee, and retreats back into the kitchen. 

Back to one another, Mulder muses, lost in thought as he rasps the pad of his thumb over the face of the medallion. Yes, they've always seemed to do that, but he always wonders when the luck is going to run out. How many miracles does a man deserve anyway? Surely he's used up his share by now. He drops his hand back to Scully's waist, on top of the quilt this time, and she stirs under his grasp. Before he can retreat, she turns, rotating under the quilt until his hand is dangerously close to unknown territory and he quickly drags it north to the safer plains of her stomach, but he doesn't pull away. When he looks down, she's looking up at him from his lap and her blue eyes are full of sleep and warm fondness.

"Don't ever bet against a Catholic mother, Mulder." She tips the corners of her mouth in secret humor, and he huffs a quiet laugh in return. 

"I wasn't planning on it." He retrieves her coffee, still warm, from the table and holds it aloft while she sits up. Once vertical, she swipes her mussed hair away from her face and tucks her body back into the curve of his own. There is no space between them when she lifts the mug from his hand and takes a long pull of coffee. "Not your mother, anyway." 

She plucks the medallion from his grasp, and she's thoughtfully silent as she watches it spin gently at the termination point of the thin, tasteful chain. As she watches it's pendulous swing, he watches her, his gaze caught by the curve of her lips on the rim of her mug and the graceful line of her hand wrapped around it's circumference. Dana Scully at rest. 

"She means well," Scully says finally, dropping the necklace back into his palm. He tucks it into his shirt pocket and retrieves his own coffee.

"I know. I'm not offended." And he isn't. Organized religion has never been his thing, but the idea of Margaret Scully's prayers covering him like the old quilt she'd tossed on him last night is not distasteful at all. "She's right. I need all the help I can get."

"I've never been as enamored with the saints as my mother, but I have to admit to my own prayers to Saint Anthony."

"What miracles did you pray for, Scully?" 

"For you," she admits. "I prayed for you when I was in Africa. I was so scared, Mulder. Scared that I would never find the answers to save you in time."

Her confession triggers a memory in him, some wispy, frail recollection of her clear flame crusading like Joan of Arc across the battlefield of his besieged mind. "I think...I think I heard you then. Or, I could feel you, some part of you, anyway."

She stares at him in awe. "Mulder, that's impossible. I was thousands of miles away." 

"Maybe," he says. "Or maybe your beliefs are strong enough for the both of us." 

Before Scully can respond, shrieks and thunderous footsteps announce break their quiet bubble as Matthew and his cousins clatter down the stairs and descend upon the Christmas tree. Before long, the living room is full of noisy, Scully Christmas cheer. Scully, oblivious to the scandalized glare Bill sends their way when he comes down the stairs to find them thick as thieves on the couch, leans even closer into Mulder's personal space. 

"They'll be at this for awhile," she whispers into the curve of Mulder's neck, and he can feel the vibration of her vocal cords in his shoulder and feel her breath escaping down the collar of his shirt, and it sends a shiver tiptoeing down his spine. "You might want to grab a shower while everyone's occupied. After the Christmas tree is decimated, there'll be a mad dash for the bathrooms. It'll get ugly."

"Never let it be said I don't take good advice when it's given to me," he answers, reluctantly untangling himself from his partner and their quilted cocoon. She rolls her eyes at him, still smiling, sips at her coffee, and turns her attention back to her nephews. Their pocket of Christmas quiet has been broken. 

He showers quickly, throwing on the spare clothes from his overnight bag, and at the last minute, fishes the Saint Anthony medallion from his shirt pocket and fastens it around his neck and tucks it under his clothes. He watches a snow plow sweep through while he towel dries his hair, and fishes his phone out of his pocket to call a cab. 

By the time he climbs back down the stairs, Christmas carnage covers the living room and morning has sent weak winter sunlight shining through the windows. The adults smile indulgently as they watch the children play with new, wished for treasures. 

"You leaving already?" Scully asks, noticing the bag slung over his shoulder. 

"Yeah, I called a cab upstairs. The roads are mostly clear, it'll be here soon." 

Scully uncurls herself from the sofa and joins him at the bottom of the stairs. "You're welcome to stay," she says, but knows he won't. She fishes his coat out of the closet and follows him into the foyer, handing it to him when he sets his bag down. 

"That's okay. I'll let you enjoy the rest of Christmas with your family." 

"What are you going to do for the rest of the day?" In stocking feet, her eyes are barely level with his breastbone and she has to crane her neck to look him in the eye. 

He shrugs. "You know me, Scully. I'll come up with something." 

"That's what I'm afraid of," she answers ruefully. Outside, a loud honk signals the arrival of his cab. Picking up his bag with one hand, he curls the other arm around Scully, drawing her into a gentle hug. She returns it fiercely, wrapping both arms around his middle and pressing her cheek to his chest. "I had a good Christmas, Mulder," she says, and he knows she's not talking about the time with her family. 

"Merry Christmas, Scully." If he wasn't standing in her mother's house, he thinks he might have kissed her, feels like she would have let him, but he settles for a quick, chaste press of his lips to her cheek. She presses the flat of her hand to his chest, and the pads of her fingers brush over the medallion. At her look of surprise, he shrugs. "We need all the miracles we can get." 

Outside, the cabby honks again. Mulder shoulders his bag, heading out into the cold Christmas morning and down the sidewalk. Scully watches from the open doorway, her arms curled around her middle against the cold, until he folds his long frame into the backseat of the cab and it pulls away from the curb. 

"Where you need to go, my man?" The gruff, elderly man in the driver's seat is wearing a cockeyed Santa hat on his head and clutching an unlit cigar between his teeth. 

"Alexandria," Mulder answers, and watches the snowy landscape out the window as the cabby points the car toward home. 


End file.
